6 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKE?, 



ships, and gave room for all its malignant effluvia to escape. The- 

 virulence of these exhalations is described by ancient authors as very 

 extraordinary; modern writers, who know the place in a cleared 

 state only, charge these accounts with exaggeration ; but I think 

 them entitled to more respect, for even now the air is feverish and 

 dangerous, as the jaundiced faces or' the vine-dressers, who have 

 succeeded the Sibyls and the Cimmerians in the possession of the 

 temple, most ruefully testify. 



Boccaccio relates, that, during his residence at the Neapolitan 

 court, the surface of this lake was suddenly covered with dead fish, 

 black and singed, as if killed by some suL-aqueous eruption of fire. 

 Ar present it abounds with tench; the Lucrine \vilh eels. The 

 clian^e of 'ortune in these lakes is singular: In the splendid days of 

 imperial Rome, the Lucrine was the chosen spot for the brilliant 

 parties of pleasure of a voluptuous court ; they are described by Se- 

 neca as tiie highest refinement of extravagance and luxury; now, a 

 slimy bed of rubies covers the scattered pools of this once-beautiful 

 sheet of water, and the dusky Avernus is now clear and serene, of- 

 fering a most alluring surface and charming scene for similar amuse- 

 ments. 



Opposite the temple I entered a cave usually styled the Sibyls 

 Grotto ; it seems more likely to have been the mouth of a commu- 

 nication between Cuma and Avernus, than the abode of a prophe- 

 tess; especially as the Sibyl is positively said by historians to have 

 dwelt in a cavvrn under the Cumean citadel, A most acute and 

 indefatigable unraveller of antiquarian clews thinks it was part of 

 the canal that Nero childishly projected from the mouth of the Ti- 

 ber to the Julian port; a scheme that was crushed in its infancy. 



On everv hill, in ever} vale of the environs, appear the ruins of 

 extensive villas, once embellished with all the elegancies of combined 

 art, now traced only by half buried mouldering walls, and some 

 marble fragments, left as it were to vouch for the taste and costli- 

 ness with which they were constructed. In the last period of the 

 commonwealth, and during the gaudy sera of the Caesar^ almost 

 every person of exalted rank had a house in this country, which the 

 sagacH u antiquaries of Puzzuoli point out to }on, without doubt 

 or hesitat on. One ruin among the rest has a superior claim to our 

 attention, a d, in a great measure, pleads our excuse for yielding 

 such easy bi-lief to the suspicious authority that stamps it with a 

 : here, we ure told, Cictro hud his Academy, where he penned 



